Government responsible for more delays in the net filtering system trials

The latest delay to hit the mandatory internet filtering trial by the government is, according to the federal government something that has come as no surprise.

An announcement of the postponing of the trial, which should have started recently, and that it will now be moved to a new date of mid January, at which time it will be revealed which internet service providers (ISPs) will be taking part in the trial.

With serious doubts that the government’s deadline would be met, ISPs Optus and iiNet recently said that they had not received any response to their applications for their participation in the trial. There was much scepticism regarding the internet filtering plans from Mark White, the chief operating officer for iiNet who said that the only reason the company was taking part in the trial of the system was to show that it wouldn’t work.

The poor track record of the Government when it came to communications projects were made apparent from the recent delays in the proposed National Broadband Network said Nick Minchin the Opposition communications spokesman. When talking to National’s summer Breakfast program has said “I’m not surprised frankly, given this Government’s bungling over communications issues generally.

We’ve seen the National Broadband Network just fade off into the distance and bedevilled by delays and procrastination, and we’re seeing the same thing here. It’s really the result of political manipulation prior to the election. The now-Government, then in opposition, made these broad sweeping promises about a National Broadband Network and … eliminating child pornography from the internet. Now they’ve got to make good on their promise and they’re finding it difficult.”

The burden of proof to confirm that the results of the trial will be reliable and legitimate now rest with Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, said Minchin, but other than this he said he had no issues with the commencement of the trial.